Doubts Discussion: Blogger or WordPress

by poonam on April 16, 2014

Doubts Discussion: Blogger or WordPress

From Ami,

Hi Poo,

Hope you’re doing well.

If you remember, I told you about my plan on starting a blog with my friend. We have conceptualized the idea, but stuck in the technicalities. See, we’re not expecting money coming for some time, we’re just starting for fun, but will like to earn at a later stage. which one among blogger and wordpress do you think can be a better option?

We will like to start with a free blog; can we buy a domain later and shift the blog, when we plan to monetize?

I know I am bothering you, but really m not that tech savyy to absorb the info available on net and get a meaning out of it.. It all seems like a alien language to me..

Pl try and reply, as and when you get time..

Me: Hey Ami, I am good and felt even better when I saw your message. I can understand what all is going through your mind as I have been through the similar phase 2 years back. This is one “Big Question” that will haunt anybody who plans to step into the world of blogging.

I am not an expert in this to guide you but still will give my 2 cents and share the things I have learnt over the time. When the thought of starting BMM struck me, I was amateur and had nobody to guide me atleast none in my circle/known one’s had any idea about anything related to starting a blog or blogging. It was a tough decision but I was determined to get it started so I turned on to google to sail me through it.

Whether to go for a free-platform like blogger/blogspot or paid-ones like “Wordpress” is the first thing one needs to decide before hand. Though with the advancement there are solution provided to switch platforms now but that involves a technicalities, requires knowledge and has a lot of risk.

Being an IT professional, I like doing thing my way and be my own-master. I was confident that I will be able to handle if something obstructs me as there is lot of online help available by the technical masters of blogging world.

WordPress Challenges:

You have to be responsible for all technicalities involved as it provides you only with management system and rest of the things you have to manage.

It doesn’t provide any in-built in widgets or themes. It comes with a single theme which might not be liked by everyone and most-likely you would want to change it and there starts your struggle to make the website/blog presentable and look like something you have ever wanted.

For every custom change, you would like to make in the theme, you need to understand what all can be implemented and will need to do quite a lot of research.

Blogger/blogspot Challenges:

Blogger/blogspot is the easiest way to kick-start the blog but it might not be the best solution if you have plans to monetize your blog as it has several platform restrictions

The unwated “.blogspot” gets added to your blog name and name gets unnecessarily lengthy and hard to read e.g

The Blogpost blog also seems to suffer from SEO difficulties and it is proved that wordpress hosted blogs has better google ranking which makes them show up first in searches, which means more organic traffic to your blog

Recently, I have heard people facing problems like dashboard issues and sometimes even the whole blog becoming invisible or you can say “Deleted” just like that, which is nothing less than a nightmare.

Conclusion: There are many Blogspot/blogger blogs are well-established and are doing an excellent job but lately I have seen many shifting from Blogspot to wordpress with a lot of risk of loosing all the comments and the ramking they have earned on google. Almost like starting from scratch.

There is also an option of buying the domain name on Blogspot blog but I have not much idea about that.

This is all from my side.. Hope you find it helpful and if there is still something that you need help with do let me know.

Now, it’s your turn my lovely readers/beauty bloggers. Share your experience about what has worked for you and what you feel will be a good start. If any of you have switched for Blogger to wordpress or vice-versa, I am all ears..

I woke up one morning, decided that I wanted to blog and started. I never thought about which would be better. Since I had a gmail account, Blogger was the easier choice for me. I have also heard about people shifting to Wordpress. In terms of technicality I am very weak and so i just decided to stick to the easier option. I never thought about it in long term, But now, when i think about expanding the blog, I am wondering whether I jumped in too quickly and took up BLogger. I am scared of losing everything I have built already and so I don’t think I would change to WordPress. If you intend to blog seriously, then WordPress may be worth all the trouble. This is my suggestion. All the Best Ami.

Well, when I started C&D (actually my sister did) but yeah, Blogger was obviously the easier choice. It has less tecnicalities and it is easier to understand and work on. It has been over a year with blogger now, and so far I have no faced any difficulties.
But ofcourse I have no idea about wordpress and the benefits it has. I have tought of shifting sometimes, but I need someone professional to do that for me.. I am sure I will screw something up if I attempt it myself. But yeah, overall, I am happy with blogger so far. Try and get your own domain after a few months of blogging.

Poonam, do you know how to shift from blogger to wordpress? Without losing all the posts?

Hi Swati,
Even I might have opted for blogger like that, but then a thought, that what if I become more interested in blogging than my regular job.. That one thought got me to googling and the option of WordPress..
Shifting jaisa technical kaam mere bas ka nahi, so will better start off with WordPress only..

You can go to http://in.godaddy.com/. There is a search box where you can type a name & see if it is available. Call on their 24/7 support number and check out the deals for a domain name + hosting and then they will help you with the purchase Happy shopping

hey Ami, I can totally feel and connect to ur concerns as I have started blogging recently!!
Now when I started I too like Poo googled and googled and descided to go for wordpress initially because I was very unsure about the whole thing..and yes I had not thought of monitizing it so I was ok with wordpress.com beside the blog name…now spednding 4 months blogging I am happy with wordpress and honestly I havent still montized it so its yet like I don’t really know!! but I surely suggest to go ahead with wordpress first and then maybe you can switch!! babes I am really unsure so i don’t know what to say!! I wish u luck though!!

I am using blogger and I have a custom domain, I don’t have”blog spot” in the URL It was just hassle free to use custom domain, infact the “http://indianfashionandlifestyle.blogspot.in.” url redirects to “http://www.indianfashionandlifestyle.com/”. Though I have heard WordPress gives you liberty to play around with your blog and add stuffs to it etc where blogger restricts you. In blogger if you want anything to be displayed then you should know HTML as that will make your task easier. One thing which does not come with WordPress is security…you have to buy widgets to take care of security of the blog as they might get hacked. WordPress is opensource so many people know how to hack that, also simple scripts can be easily injected to your blog with your knowledge and you will have to tackle it smartly.

But yes Poo as you said one fine morning you don’t see your blog…the reason might be someone has made complain against you and stuffs like that….I believe google crosschecks and then removes your blog…that means there is some problem with your blog…..I might be wrong here as these are few stories which I have heard and I don’t know much about this

Lovely post dear…Few things I didn’t knew about Word press you just highlighted….

Wordpress is the way to go. It might seem difficult in the beginning. But its all out there if you put in only a little effort. Once everything is ready you have nothing to worry about!! Its easy to host and custom coding is also pretty much easy!

wordpress definitely!!!! first of all, with no offence to anybody…wordpress is taken more seriosuly..if u want serious blogging..lets accept the fact that at some point the money has to satrt flwing in …a little atleast to fund all the purchases and efforts we put in….also worpress looks more lively and customizable…at the end..if you are JUST blogging to share your thoguhts..you can choose either,…but if you are blogging to convert it into something big…not financially i am saying..just big in terms of as a whole…wordpress is the way to go!

As far as Blogger is concerned, which I am using, it gives you a lot of widgets that can be instantly used. I didn find any problem in buying a new domain & linking it to the blog, though I realized I should have done it in the first itself since I had to start fresh. my old blogspot url had gained some pagerank & stuff which was completely lost when I linked the new domain. So it is best to invest in a domain name from godaddy which is quite affordable & then start a blog. The steps were quite simple. All the best Ami…

OMG Poo!!
U r such a darling!!
I mean you really really do care for your readers a lot and that I must adopt this thing from you when I start a blog.. First lesson learnt
Thanks a lot for the technical details. I guess, I will get to understand better as I go through it practically.. But definitely, I shall opt for wordpress.. seems like I gotta do lot of work on it..
Another update, we’ve finally agreed on a bit investment, so we’ll get a domain and hosting as well.. U know, if we can spend on impulsive shopping, then definitely we should invest a little for our interests..
And u’ve already got me a circle of readers I suppose.. U gotta do some publicity when I launch the blog, though it may take time..

Thanks for all the input girls. Me too did some research before starting my blog and found out wordpress to be to the latest flavour. I feel its is very easy to manage and read to start with and as said, you have the option to buy a domain name and integrate with your wordpress blog account.

Hi Girls, I have an additional question.
I did my research and chose wordpress. Created by blog, registered by domain name , now I want to host my site. To do this I know that either we can host on wordpress or any another other host. I have heard that on using wordpress as host, we cannot have any advertisements added!! How did u tackle this situation.